


Brave the Dark

by ratherstarryeyed



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (certainly not i), (nothing physical yet but who knows where this goes), Alternate Universe - Murder Mystery, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Gen, Oh!!, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, and damien sounds like it fits in the victorian era mate what can i say, and deceit’s name is damien, and fighting. lots of fighting., and there’s a lot of talking about killing/murdering the other characters, because Victorian Era, but anyhow., everyone is morally grey, listen this is a weird au it’s got a lot going on, this is going to be fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 17:03:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21165095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherstarryeyed/pseuds/ratherstarryeyed
Summary: The townspeople never thought of the manor on the hill without a shiver, as they’d heard stories, you see. Stories of a party that had ended in disaster. Stories of a wealthy novelist who had invited his friends to dinner, hoping to mend relationships long since broken. Stories of a nobleman with a taste for adventure, stories of an inventor who knew just a little too much. Stories of an outlaw with past that tormented him, stories of a man who, after he’d had the smallest taste of power, had become so corrupt that he could no longer distinguish truths from lies. Stories of a man who could see what no one else could, who understood mysteries far beyond human comprehension. Stories of things lurking in the shadows, stories of things they dared not dwell on.Years ago, Patton, Virgil, Logan, Roman, Damien, and Remus had been friends. They’d loved each other more than any family, but now they hate each other just as much. Patton misses the way things used to be, but sometimes there’s a reason that the past is the past. Sometimes, that’s where the past should stay.





	Brave the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fun little thing that hasn’t gotten way out of hand _yet,_ but rest assured, when i have more time, it absolutely will. i’m planning to make this a multi-chaptered fic eventually, but for now, it can be read on its own (as long as you don’t hate cliff hangers too much). It’s vaguely inspired by joey graceffa’s “escape the night” series (but somehow Even More Extra) and for [this contest run by @sanderssidescelebrations](https://sanderssidescelebrations.tumblr.com/post/187843455281/sanders-sides-spooky-month). oh! and where would i be without [an absolutely unnecessary playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZEiuHxc56cOYvR8W7tnuy?si=laIldFvjQ7SU3Uo14J5auA) that i decided was absolutely necessary? nowhere, i tell you. nowhere. but aNyWaY,,, that’s where the title for the fic came from, as well as the chapter title. if you wanted that Absolutely Unnecessary information, well. now you have it. (Onto The Fic I’ve Stalled Long Enough)

Long, long ago, there was a manor. Built of dark stone and sitting secluded at the top of a hill, the manor was a regal affair. It overlooked a small town, filled day and night with villagers milling about, talking and laughing, buying and selling, crying and fighting. The manor watched over it all, its perpetually dark windows boring into each person’s soul. For though it represented the epitome of wealth and success, the townspeople never thought of it without a shiver. 

They’d heard stories, you see, stories of a party that had ended in disaster. Stories of a wealthy novelist who had invited his friends to dinner, hoping to mend relationships long since broken. Stories of a nobleman with a taste for adventure, stories of an inventor who knew just a little too much. Stories of an outlaw with past that tormented him, stories of a man who, after he’d had the smallest taste of power, had become so corrupt that he could no longer distinguish truths from lies. Stories of a man who could see what no one else could, who understood mysteries far beyond human comprehension. Stories of things lurking in the shadows, stories of things they dared not dwell on. 

These were the kinds of stories you pretended never to have heard, the kinds of stories told in whispers and behind locked doors. These were the kinds of stories that surrounded the manor, that enveloped it in secrets. These were the stories that kept people away, centuries after the events spoken of had come to pass.

It hadn’t always been this way though. Once upon a time, the manor had been lit from the inside out with a golden glow, no matter the time of day. Once upon a time, people hadn’t feared the manor, but revered it. Once upon a time, the manor had been full of life.

It was from one of these days that the source of these stories stemmed. Like any other day, the manor had been bustling with activity. Voices full of laughter echoed throughout the sunlit halls, and Patton laughed along with them. He smiled and spun between his servants, running through the list of things he’d had to do in his head one more time. Just as he’d thought, everything was almost ready. 

He spent the next few hours dashing around the house lighting candles, checking up on the kitchen, the dining room, the ballroom, making sure everything was perfect. When he was sure that it was, he changed into one of his nicer suits. _There,_ he thought to himself, straightening his overcoat and smoothing the fabric of his shirt. _Perfect._

As he left his chambers, he noticed that the sun had set and the manor was lit only by the candles lining the halls. Some may have found it eerie, but Patton was relaxed by it. The flickering flames reminded him of nights spent curled up in the library, entranced by a book or hunched over his desk, writing like there was no tomorrow. Sunlight energized him, but it was candlelight that gave him his inspiration.

By the time he made it down to the foyer, a smile had taken over his face. He was going to see all his friends tonight, together again for the first time in years. How could he not be smiling? Tonight was going to be a good night, he knew it.

The first to arrive, of course, was Logan. Ever punctual, he knocked on the door less than a minute after Patton had descended the spiral staircase. 

Logan was closely followed by Damien, who pushed the door open himself and entered as Patton had been showing Logan to the dining room.

After Damien came Roman. Roman, who swept into the manor with a flourish, planting a kiss on Patton’s hand before the two walked into the dining room.

They were met with oppressive silence, as Logan and Damien were quite clearly ignoring each other. “Well,” Patton chirped, pretending to be oblivious to the tension, “everyone else will probably get here a little bit later than you three, so why don’t you all go ahead and catch up? I’ll be waiting in the foyer for the others if you need me.”

“Patton, darling.” It was Damien who spoke up first, a too-sweet smile on his face as he stood up and leaned forward on his cane. “I don’t remember you telling me that anyone else would be here.”

“That’s because I didn’t,” Patton replied, struggling to keep his smile in place. “I knew no one would come if they knew who else would be here. And, well, that would ruin the point of tonight, wouldn’t it?” He forced out a light laugh, but when it was met with nothing but glares, it fizzled out. 

“There’s a reason that we wouldn’t have come,” Damien hissed out. “There’s a _reason_ I refuse to be in the same room as these two.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Roman muttered under his breath from beside Patton. 

Patton, somehow, kept smiling. “Listen, I know you all might not get along very well, but you were good friends before. We all were, and I’m confident that we can be again.”

Damien rolled his eyes as he sat back down. “I won’t leave, and I won’t kill them either. That’s all I’ll grant you.” 

“Patton,” Logan began carefully, speaking for the first time since he’d greeted Patton earlier, “Who else is going to be here?”

Abruptly, Patton felt both Roman and Damien’s gazes on him as well. “The nerd has a good question, for once,” Roman said, eyes narrowing. “Who else did you invite?”

Acutely aware of all three of their stares, Patton gulped. “Just two more people,” he said quietly.

“No.” Damien stood again, his cane hitting the floor too loudly. Patton winced, both at the noise and his tone. “No,” Damien repeated. “Them, I can handle. Remus, I can handle.” He shook his head. “But not _him._” Everyone in the room went quiet again. They knew exactly who he was referring to.

“And speaking of handling Remus, unlike our two-faced friend, I absolutely cannot. I’m sorry, Patton.”

Logan stayed silent throughout their whole exchange, quietly observing. As far as Patton remembered, he didn’t hold a serious grudge against anyone in particular, but he’d never really been open about his feelings either. For all he knew, Logan could have despised all of them.

“I know you all don’t exactly like each other, but—” 

“We’re all aware that we were once friends, Patton. But that’s in the past. Things happen.” Damien took a step forward, his cane tapping on the stone floor. “Stop trying to pretend everything is fine when it’s so clearly not. We’re not going to magically forgive each other, and things will _never_ go back to the way they were. Give it up.” Patton recoiled at the words, stung. He didn’t want to believe what Damien was saying, but he knew there was truth to it. That’s what stung even more.

Damien sighed at Patton’s wounded expression. “I’m sorry,” he said half-heartedly. “But I’m leaving.” The room fell silent again, save for the uneven cadence of Damien’s shoes and cane on the floor. No one moved as he walked through the doorway, back into the foyer. They did nothing but listen as he opened the door.

The sound of it shutting didn’t come. Instead, what they heard was a low, furious, _“You.”_

“Good to see you too, Damien. Nice gloves.” 

_Virgil._ Patton ran from the room, leaving Roman and Logan behind. “Virgil!” 

“Hey, Pat.” Virgil looked so, so tired, but he was here. He’d made it, he was here, Damien hadn’t left, and things were looking up again.

Patton was not going to acknowledge the fact that things could very well get infinitely worse within less than a minute because for this minute at least, things were good.

Of course, Remus decided to drop in right then—quite literally, as he’d somehow gotten into the house without Patton noticing and was currently hanging upside down from the chandelier overhead—which caused Roman to shriek. Patton wondered numbly when he and Logan had left the dining room. He hadn’t heard them, but then again, he’d also been rather focused on Damien and Virgil.

Speaking of Damien and Virgil, they appeared to have agreed upon a temporary cease-fire so they could stop glaring daggers at each other and direct their anger towards Remus instead. Patton sighed. There really was no way to win here, not when there was so much bad blood within this group. It wasn’t as if he would stop trying, though. He wasn’t one to give up.

Remus grinned widely as the chandelier swung back and forth, apparently pleased with his entrance. “Did you miss me?”

“Absolutely not,” Roman said, shooting his brother a withering look before turning and stalking back to the dining room.

“Shame.” Remus’s tone was very nonchalant for someone who was recklessly maneuvering himself so that he dangled from the chandelier by his hands instead of his legs. At least, that’s what Patton thought he was doing. Remus was twisting himself in a way that Patton felt certain was meant to be as elaborate and disturbing as possible. Human bodies _should not move_ the way Remus’s was, and Patton couldn’t figure out if he was just showing off or trying to get down.

After another stretch of heavy silence during which Remus contorted himself into various impossible shapes, Patton was relieved to find that when he stopped moving, he was holding onto the chandelier with his hands and dropping to the floor. He was lucky that the structure was low-hanging enough that he could do so, as otherwise he would have been forced to climb back up and enter the manor through the front door. Roman would never let him live down his ruined entrance, the two would never stop being so hostile towards each other, and everything would be ruined. 

So he was very lucky indeed.

Patton plastered a smile on again as soon as he got over his shock. “Oh! With Remus’s and Virgil’s arrivals, we have everyone here!”

“Joy,” Damien muttered, still eyeing the front door like it was a lifeline. “I can still leave, can’t I?”

“And what, miss out on spending time with me?” Virgil raised an amused eyebrow. “Do I really get under your skin _that much?_ Huh.”

Damien could have easily smiled coldly, said yes, and left without another word. But that would be admitting defeat. And Damien wasn’t about to let Virgil win, Patton realized as he merely gritted his teeth and returned to the dining room.

Virgil’s eyes sparkled with thinly veiled malice as he said to Patton, voicing echoing enough that Damien would be able to hear, “I wonder why he didn’t say no? It’s almost like I really do bother him that much, isn’t it?” 

Patton feigned amusement at Virgil’s words. Though he loved him, Virgil scared him sometimes. He’d seen his ruthlessness first hand, and the thought that he’d snap again one day and go too far had plagued him all too often.

But now was not the time to dwell on the past, despite the way his guests were acting. Now was the time to move forward and forgive. They all had to move on.

Heedless of his mindset though, Patton’s heart pounded as he braced himself to re-enter the dining room, gesturing for Virgil, Remus, and Logan to follow him.

“Now that you’re all here, we can start on dinner!” Though he was hesitant to leave this volatile group alone, he’d asked everyone on his staff to wait in the kitchen in case something went horribly wrong. He’d have to go get them whether he liked it or not. “There’s wine out if you want to have some while I go alert the kitchen.” _Perhaps he shouldn’t have offered them alcohol,_ he thought belatedly, glancing at Logan’s raised eyebrow. It was too late to rescind his offer now, though. “I’ll be right back.”

He ducked out of the room, trying his best to remain calm as he made his way down to the kitchen, walking as fast as he could without running. When he reached the entrance to the kitchen, he knocked against the doorway. “Hi,” he said, giving the group gathered around a table the most genuine smile of the night. “Whenever you’re ready, you guys bring up dinner?” 

Remy, his butler, nodded and motioned for a few others to grab the platters. “I take it everything’s running smoothly, then? No one’s died?”

Patton let out a small, involuntary laugh. “Not yet, at least.”

“You’d better get back there before someone does, sir,” Remy said, a half-smile on his face as he shooed Patton away. “And we don’t want that, do we?”

“No we don’t,” Patton murmured as he walked away. 

Thankfully, when Patton arrived back in the dining room a few moments later, he was met with silence, not screams. This was the better of the two by far, though the lack of noise was offputting nonetheless. It took a moment for him to work up the courage to cut through the quiet with an unnecessary announcement of his return, but he managed it eventually. “I’m back,” he said, feeling rather foolish for having done so. It wasn’t as though anyone had missed his entrance.

Not even Remus commented on that, not even Virgil looked up to give him a smile. All five of his friends continued gazing at the ground as though it held the secrets to the universe. “Well,” Patton said, figuring that if no one was going to respond, he had to keep the conversation going, “there’s no use in all of us just standing around! Why don’t we sit down?” He himself made his way to the head of the table to take his seat, internally praying that everyone else would follow suit. Patton didn’t think he had the energy to deal with much more confrontation—if any at all.

To his relief, they did, albeit more reluctantly than he would have hoped. There was a bit of shuffling around as his friends tried to find a seat next to someone that they _wouldn’t_ be tempted to murder. Patton ended up with Virgil and Remus on either side of him, and Logan and Damien were left to the seats next to each of them respectively. Roman took the final spot at the other end of the table. Patton scanned the arrangement. Virgil and Damien were far enough away from each other, as were Roman and Remus. That would have to be good enough for now, as no seat any of them could have chosen would really be perfect.

The group lapsed into silence again, and Patton couldn’t bring himself to fill it. He was already tired of keeping his smile in place, forcing cheerfulness into his voice on top of that sounded like a near-impossible feat. 

Just as the silence began to grow uncomfortably long, the doors to the dining room opened. Like a knight come to rescue Patton, the food had arrived. He had been saved.

Silver platters were laid out in front of them, and chalices were filled with rich, red wine. Deserts were set in the center of the table in anticipation of the meal’s end, and two unopened bottles of wine were left next to them. Then, as quickly as they’d arrived, Patton’s staff flitted out of the room. The doors shut behind them with a sound like an ending.

Patton was the first to lift the lid off of his food, and he was immediately hit with a wave of steam that coated his glasses followed by the mouth-watering scent of spices. He set the lid aside as he leaned back and waited for his glasses to clear. When they finally did, he found that the rest of his guests had removed the lids from their food as well. They turned to him as though waiting for something. 

Ah, right. A toast.

Patton raised his glass. “To each and every one of us,” he ignored the glares this statement brought, “to the past, present, and future,” he ignored the eye rolls this time, fully aware of how cheesy that sounded and not caring one bit, “and finally, to friendship and forgiveness.”

His toast was met with a series of mutterings and glasses that were raised before being brought to their owner’s lips. Patton himself took a sip of the wine, swallowing thickly. He’d never liked the taste of alcohol.

Without further comment, Patton, Virgil, Logan, Roman, Damien, and Remus picked up their silverware and dug into their food. A few moments passed in contented silence as they ate before Logan wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. Without preamble, he asked, “Patton, why are we here?”

“I thought I’d made that clear?” Patton said, confused. “Didn’t I mention that I wanted to get all of us back together and—”

“Yes, you did say that, but I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”

“That’s new,” Roman muttered.

“Why now?” Logan continued, unfazed by Roman’s snark. “Why not earlier? It’s been years since Damien and Virgil’s… falling out, and years more since Roman and I stopped talking to the other three. So why now?”

Patton didn’t really have an answer for that, not one that he could properly explain, anyway. He shrugged. “Now just felt like the right time. I’d hoped that maybe, since so much time has passed and all—” Patton was interrupted by his own harsh cough, halting his speech for a moment, “—that you would be more likely to forgive each other. Time heals all wounds, as they say.” He gave another cough.

“Well, _that’s_ clearly not the case,” Virgil said, leaning back in his chair as he directed a scowl at Damien.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” Patton sighed, and the action drew another fit of coughing from him.

“Are you alright, Patton?” Roman asked, concerned. 

“Fine,” Patton said before coughing again. “Probably just swallowed wrong.”

It didn’t look like anyone believed him, but no one commented either. At least, Patton didn’t hear anyone say anything. Then he noticed that someone’s mouth was moving, so his previous thought was clearly wrong. Was it Logan talking, maybe? His vision was going blurry. He couldn’t quite tell. His ears were also ringing, which would explain the lack of a voice on Logan’s part. Or it could be Virgil that was trying to say something. He still couldn’t tell.

Then he was coughing again, and he couldn’t seem to stop. He pulled out a handkerchief to cough into, holding it to his mouth. When he took a breath and pulled it away, he was horrified to find it splattered with blood. Patton stood up, toppling his chair as he did so. There was no sound, but he felt the vibrations it made when it hit the floor. This was mildly concerning. 

“Doctor,” he croaked out before another coughing fit began and he doubled over. Hopefully someone had heard him, but he had no idea. He hadn’t heard himself.

Patton’s head was pounding. His vision was blurry. He couldn’t hear. He was coughing up blood. 

Was he _dying?_

He didn’t want to die, but it wasn’t as if he had any say in the matter. His legs gave out. He fell to the floor. He coughed up more blood.

Then he went still.

Stopped breathing. 

Patton’s friends stood over him, watching helplessly as the life drained from his body. Someone was crying. Someone was screaming. Patton couldn’t tell who because, well… Patton was dead.

No, Patton had been _murdered._

Patton had been murdered, and he’d left behind a house full of people who hated each other. A house of people who, if given the chance, would slaughter each other. If given the chance, they would coat the manor in the blood of their grudges until no one was left. If given the chance, they’d kill until every one of them lay as dead as Patton. 

Patton had been murdered, but he might not be the only one who died before the night was over. Not if the stories the villagers told were true, and every story has at least a grain of truth to it. 

The story of the manor is no different.

**Author's Note:**

> comments provide me with endless serotonin so,, please?
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/ratherstareyed) || [tumblr](https://ratherstarryeyed.tumblr.com) || [tumblr post](https://ratherstarryeyed.tumblr.com/post/188573794512/brave-the-dark-the-darks-not-taking-prisoners)


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